THE NEW YORKER .J ndreu, a Spanish artist, are at the Val- cntine. Though new to New York, .L ndreu has had a long and, it would seem, a aried career abroad, and the show is by way of being a retrospective, with pieces dating from the middle nine- teen-twenties up to the present. All of which might explain a certain air of wild disconnectedness in the collection, for the earliest items are in the most romantic eighteenth-century tradition and the later ones range through Cal- lotesque fantasy to wind up in a mood of surrealism slightly tinged with }7 rl- I07L. Book wickedness. There's no gain- saying the artist's technical proficiency, however, and in certain of the more recent canvases, he masses his influences behind him and strikes out with really startling effect. I hardly know what to say of the Guy Pène du Bois show, now on at the Kraushaar Galleries, except possi- bly to point to it as a remarkable study of the way a man can be trapped by his own technique. A big affair, this is also a retrospective, dating back to 1908, and in it one sees first, in the early little restaurant scenes, couples talking, and so on, the creation of a swift, simplified idiom admirably adapted to such direct social commentary; then the gradual hardening of manner, the sweetening of coior, the emptying of content, until at last the SWIftness has turned into mere dexterity, the simplification become post- erlike stylization, and you feel that you wan t to go back to the beginning again, to find out just where it was that the talent went wrong. Like the Sepeshy exhibition, the show closes this Saturday. -ROBERT M. COATES ART FOR CHRISTMAS B UYING art gifts this year should be easier in some respects. If you're interested in originals-and I hope you are, for the original painting, drawing, or even etching or lithograph has an individuality that the reproduction lacks -more and more dealers are willing to supply works to fit anyone's purse. Even the haughtier galleries, if you prod them, will often turn up an item by one of their artists to suit, say, the $100 budget. The places listed below are either run- ning Christmas shows or are specially fitted out with gift items: A.C.A. GALLERY, 52 West 8th: "8 x 10 Show" of drawings, paintings, litho- graphs, etc., of about that size by mem- bers of the American Artists' Congress; all $10. If you trust your judgment, you may pick up a bargain. Closes Dec. 10th. ARISTA, 30 Lexington Avenue (23rd): Etchings, '\ ater colors, and so on, done by Käthe Kolh,vitz, Dan Rico, Hugo 115 r- . .+- .... . +- . . -..... ... .--. . 1 ..........,... ... . .-.. ._._. . . ...... 40.,. (jJ1/e/en ed 6:f @ Øtf/1/ JEJEUIcCAN ø (jJrøduced cæcørdÏnf! tð tIw OVigmd metIwd 0/ ñaJWl/d fer: · in tIze éßofde ff .. . -.. . ....---. .-. -...,.....-..p.... .. .. BERN HARD ._. .." . . . A . . . . ...._. .- AMERICAN WINE CO * ST- LOUIS, MO.